Hi all , I am reading on here a lot of different stories and feel i should have my say and give my story.

My name is Aaron, In 2005 i was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and was only 15 years old. For the benefit of people not knowing what Crohn’s Disease is, my small and large intestines are inflamed, my body cannot take in nutrients properly which causes me to constantly fight with weight loss. Now they are the most common symptoms you will get when you read about Crohn’s but without having the illness you will never come close to understanding how serious and how the illness really does change your life.
When i was diagnosed with the Crohn’s i was put straight away onto medication which included anti inflammatory tablets, steroids and multi vitamins. To some extent my flare up had calmed down and i was happy that the flare up had “gone to sleep”. Being out of remission i thought “great i can go back to my normal life” but reality is i have become very paranoid whenever i leave the house as to where the nearest toilet is and if i was not home within the next hour i would be in trouble. Now up until last year i had constantly took these tablets and it ranged on 7 tablets a day without the steroids and with steroids was roughly 16 tablets a day.
Going through them years i was always in and out of remissions and the answer from the doctors was always to take the steroids, but when i was 21 i started to feel the difference of being on the steroids , my body felt weaker, bones hurt more when banged, and generally found it more difficult to move around. Last year i had a minor flare up which was confused with my appendix at the hospital which caused me to stay in hospital over night . During that night i experienced the man opposite me die, i experienced the build up watching him being able to stand up walk around to turn a funny yellow colour and finally be at rest. Now i wont say which hospital i was at but for 4-5 hours this man was still lying in his bed deceased and was not removed and i can still see the mans expression on his face. I have grown up playing a lot of these violent games but i can honestly say this experienced completely changed my view on life and i now know i really don’t want to be back inside another hospital.
After leaving the hospital i started to look into the tablets i had been taking the last few years and see the scary long term effects that for some reason don’t make it onto the tablets printed paper inside the box. Pentasa is a anti-inflammatory drug which basically “covers up” my inflammation in my intestines. Prednisone is the weakest steroid you take up until your body refuses to react to it and then you are given stronger steroids but here are the dangers of the “weakest” steroid, It causes osteoporosis (which i can say was the reason my body felt weaker), and makes you vulnerable to liver cancer as the chemical change happens in the liver. Now i started to realize that these tablets were only “covering up” my symptoms and yet cause so many other problems and this made me look into alternative medicines as the last thing i wanted to was to go back to hospital. In the UK i was on the weakest tablets which meant it was only time until i would be moved onto the stronger tablets. I looked into different alternatives like Manunka Honey but found later this can be to strong on the stomach and i didn’t see any good effects from taking this.
At the same time i got my monthly newsletter from the Crohn’s and Colitis organization(NACC) and they had a study saying how scientists were looking into cannabis as a treatment, The first thing i did was email the people at NACC and there reply was “due to the current laws in the UK we cannot advise you on taking cannabis and i should speak to my specialist”. Straight away i was on the internet and typed in “Crohn’s and cannabis” now before i go any further i have been brought up as a jehovah witness and from how the media portray cannabis i also believed it was the devils drug. But then i started reading how this one plant could solve all the symptoms i was having and it would stop me needing to take all these tablets which cause long term problems. I read how if i was in a medical state in America or other countries that supported this i would qualify for a card and would be given this as a medicine, this was when i sat down with my parents and talked about this alternative treatment, sure at first there were some arguments but then once i showed them different things on the internet (Rick simpsons Cure for cancer, Shona Banda etc) and they spent time on there own looking into it they also started to see how maybe this could help me.
Since last year i have been off all my tablets and use a vaporizer to medicate myself with cannabis morning lunch and night, I don’t suffer from the nausea every time i had to take tablets, i have not had any pains since last year, and my overall quality of life has increased.I have stopped eating “rubbish” foods and eat healthy now which has also helped with the decrease in flare ups and my specialist knows about this and although he cannot advise it he understands that it helps me. For people reading this will now be thinking “what a shame he has no go in life and sits at home every day taking cannabis” i have a full time job working all over the UK as a machine engineer working from 4am-2pm 4 days a week, i work just as hard as everyone else but now people cannot tell i have this life changing illness. Sure i still have to go to the toilet a lot but to not have the other symptoms i am happy have gotten used to using public bathrooms.
What annoys me now is that if i was in these medical states i would be viewed as just another citizen but because of the UK laws i am seen as a criminal breaking the law, and seeing as there is no such thing as a “little criminal or “big” criminal it puts me in the same category as murderers and rapists. So here is where i stand, my choice is to follow the UK laws and go back onto my tablets and have all my daily symptoms back or to be selfish and think about my health and continue to be seen as a criminal, if you were in my shoes honestly, “what would you do?”
I agree that taking cannabis while young could damage the brain as its still developing but we need to get cannabis legalized for medicinal purposes, if this was the case we would be able to go to a dispensary , show a medical card given from a doctor and be given the right types of cannabis for our illnesses. This would be just the same as buying alcohol or tobacco from a corner shop but by having the medical card would stop young children being able to get hold of it. It would also go deeper into the growing of the drug and be controlled and bring back the lower amounts of THC as professionals would be growing it and not just the gangs on the street who only care about the profit.
So that is my story on my view of cannabis, i don’t expect this to stay on this website long as i am the minority here and its a biased site but everyone has their right to speak and i hope our laws finally do the right thing and change.

Thanks
Aaron

Related Posts: